


Rainbow Flag

by DatGirlSuzie



Category: Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six (Video Games)
Genre: Bandit and Monty at pride, Bandit broke both his arms, Cute, M/M, Pride, Traffic, married
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-05-31 15:28:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19428814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DatGirlSuzie/pseuds/DatGirlSuzie
Summary: Bandit and Monty try to make it to pride but when plans fall apart they find a better solution





	Rainbow Flag

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! I know it has been awhile since I've written anything but I hope this makes it up to y'all. This is for the Sun's Out, Guns Out event @DualRainbow on Tumblr. Let me know what you think and I want to thank @rosallora for helping me edit this!
> 
> Side note 7/2: Holy shit this fic really wants to fight with me. First it cut off the ending and then it made it double. My apologies to anyone who read it before today, it should be all good now

To say that Montagne was in love with Bandit would be an understatement. Ever since the Frenchman laid his eyes on the small German, he knew it was game over – a fact that took a while to come to terms with. And while it wasn’t easy at first, it was a process that he felt himself committing more and more to. Talking after simulations turned into long talks over coffee, and then those extended into late nights in the mess or at the bar, and soon enough that morphed into things that he hadn’t prepared himself for at all. The way Dominic spoke about mortality, his views on politics – the simple topics of taste in TV and music melted away so quickly. They disintegrated before his eyes as Dominic drove him to dive deeper into his own thinking, and through that, Monty was able to see the man he spoke with. The depth of him, the breadth of him. And suddenly, the man who was so much trouble, the one who pranked and joked, who cussed and joked about friendly fire, started to make sense.

Their talks evolved from semantic and ethics to family, an order which had surprised the Frenchman. Not only did Bandit have a twin, but he had five more brothers, not including Cedrick. At first, he thought Dom was messing with him, but when the German pulled out his phone to show family photos, he accepted that Bandit’s parents were stronger than any of the operators in Rainbow. Six little Bandit-alikes, running around. What a thing to endure.

Slowly but surely, they became more intertwined in each other’s lives. The time they spent together became less and less esoteric, their questions more aimed towards the future – what did Bandit want to do with his career, would Monty ever consider retiring, what about relocation, undercover work, what about a family? Everything was tackled. Nothing was off limits. And when the question, the question, was finally asked, Gilles knew the answer with all his heart. It’s not as if they hadn’t talked about it before.

Bandit had asked him weeks ago about the topic with all the nuance of a trash can falling over in an empty parking lot, but seeing as how nothing had happened until that night, Gilles just chalked it up as curious conversation and perhaps a bit of probing. If he was being honest, Monty didn’t know that anything was happening until he heard Twitch squeal in delight. He looked towards her direction and noticed everyone else’s reactions. Blitz was gaping at something and Rook was playfully elbowing his side. Marius could even be heard whispering “is this for real” to Gustave who was slowly, but surely, chugging the remaining wine in his glass. All this because Dom pulled out a small box and sank to one knee. As the question was repeated, this time with more concern, Gilles realized that this wasn’t a joke and that Bandit was in fact asking for his permission to spend the rest of their lives together. After his response was met with cheers and several congratulations, Gilles realized that this was the happiest he had ever been. And he regretted nothing of it.

“Holy fucking shit can we go any slower?” Monty’s calm moment was broken by said husband yelling at the row of cars in front of him. They were driving from Hereford to London for pride, something Dom had begged him to do ever since they set foot on English soil, but it seemed like everyone and their mother wanted to do the same thing. This meant that they were in standstill traffic for the past however minutes. Fortunately, the windows were closed so he didn’t have to deal with other drivers getting aggressive as well, nor the look the mother on the sidewalk next to them would have given if her kids had heard his husband’s outburst. Checking the clock, Gilles concluded that they had been stuck for at least twenty minutes, only moving a few meters within that time. Sighing, Monty realized he should have seen this coming and planned for it. and it seemed like every passing second the German was getting more and more agitated.

First it was restlessness, Dom distracted himself on his cellphone while tapping his foot, then it turned to small comments about how everyone else was a dumbass and the “world needed a new plague”, but now it appears the avenue he chose to vent his anger was muttering at no one and everyone. In his frustration, Bandit had animatedly waved his arms around, wanting to showcase his annoyance even further. This would have been cute, however, the heavy plaster casts his husband was wearing on both arms made Gilles fear for both his and the vehicle’s safety.

It wasn’t even anything major that made the German break his arms. First, it was a basic training exercise; Dom was defending and wanted to show off, this meant he was attempting to kill the attackers from their starting point. It caught a few of them off guard in the beginning, but as the simulation went on, they started catching on and Bandit was getting killed first over and over. Then, for some Goddamn reason, Dom got the brilliant idea of jumping off the second story of Hereford to catch Ash and her crew off guard. It worked. He got nearly everyone down—save for Blitz who hid behind his shield—but it appears in his own smugness with himself, Bandit forgot that he was falling. Hard. After a loud “whomp” and the dust settled, it became apparent that the German had broken his right arm. Gustave was exacerbated by the situation but said that it would heal in a few weeks if Bandit kept his shenanigans to a minimum. That night, Dom made a joke about how it would be harder to do things with his right hand, the awkward jerking motions made dispersing any and all mystery.

The next arm broke two weeks later when Bandit insisted on handing a large flag for pride. He was delegating—although he called it supervising—Jäger and Blitz to hang it up for him when he got frustrated that they weren’t doing it “properly”. Getting up from the lawn chair, Gilles watched as his husband was chastising his friends in German before shoving Marius off the ladder and stumbling up it himself. His brain should have connected the dots that Bandit was not supposed to be putting pressure on his broken arm, let alone using said arm to support him up the ladder; but it only did so when he realized that yes, Dominic was on the ladder, and yes, he did almost fall off twice. Monty could hear his own voice yell out his husband’s name and watched in horror and Bandit waved him off with his left hand. His good hand. Which meant that the right hand was supporting him

A small yelp could be heard as the German came crashing down left hand extended to help stop his fall. Another stop at Gustave’s office and several earfuls of French curses towards Gilles for some reason—he didn’t know why, but it seemed that everyone expressed their distain and annoyance for Bandit to him instead of the man himself—they were on their way to their apartment. With only one party being able to use their arms. Dom made another sexual joke about not being able to stop Gilles if he wanted to do “whatever you wanted” to him, but it did nothing to quell his fear that the next few weeks would be hell. They were.

Bandit wanted everything taken care of for him, and as much as Monty wanted to reprimand Dom for asking for a fifth popsicle—something that meant Gilles had to go back inside and downstairs to the freezer to get—he couldn’t beat the fact that the German could not physically do that himself. Well, he probably could, but Monty just wanted for his husband’s arms to heal so this could all be in the past. Bandit was milking every minute of the experience, but that was to be expected, and Monty didn’t know where smugness ended and need began.

Armpocalypse2019 also meant that he was running out of things for the two of them to do. Normally, Gilles would drag Dom to go biking, swimming, or running, but with his husband’s arms effectively non-functional, the first two were impossible, and the heat made it so running would be potentially hazardous, he was running out of things to do. So, when he overheard Rook and Blitz talking about heading to pride that same day, Monty knew it was the perfect thing to keep Bandit occupied for the day.

Yes, it would be hot, and he’d be required to carry around everything Dom would want to buy, and it’d be crowded as hell, but if it meant getting the German off his butt for the day and having a great time, why not? He quickly rushed home and informed said German about his plan and they both immediately prepared. It was early enough in the morning where they’d assume that everything would be fine – they could still beat the traffic if they speeded. Just a little, but a little nonetheless.

And now that’d gone completely out the window, replaced with near standstill traffic. The signage said it was another 30km to their exit, and there was no relief in sight.

“I can’t believe this.” Dominic griped from the passenger seat. His feet were resting on the dash, wearing his good walking boots, worn-in for dozens of operations. Reliable, unlike his upper half. Montagne wanted this to be over already. By the time they got into the city, it was going to be half-over. And as excited as he had been on Dominic’s behalf, the idea of spending the day in a sweaty crowd of strangers wasn’t his idea of a good time. Monty was used to being on guard in high traffic areas, directing the flow of people, making sure that individuals got to safety in a quick and timely manner. He drums his fingers against the steering wheel, head lolling back against the headrest.

“Look at that,” Dominic nudges the toe of his boot against the glass, leaving a smudge, “another meter of ground covered.”

Montagne grinds his teeth, closing his eyes for a moment. This was his fault. They hadn’t left early enough, hadn’t packed appropriately somehow, the possibilities were quickly piling up in his head.

“So this is what they felt like during the Great War, huh.” Dominic rolls down the window on the passenger side, lettering in the summer heat. “You getting trenchfoot yet?”

“Not quite,” Monty grates out. He sighs, trying to find something positive to comment on. “The banners look nice – seems like someone’s done a new mural.”

Dominic tilts his head, looking at the view his husband could see. In the process, he catches a look at the Frenchman’s expression, a tangle of worry and disappointment. He shifts his posture in the seat. “Sure, it’s nice.” A long, silent moment stretches on. The car moves forward, inching by, and Dominic sees an exit leading to an interchange – something leading out of town. Away from traffic. And away from Pride.

“Hey. Take this exit.”

Monty’s dark eyes glance over at him, expression twisting slightly. “The GPS-”

“Babe.”

Montagne raises a brow.

“Just trust me. Let’s take this exit.”

The Frenchman stiffens at his place at the wheel, fingers tightening over the strip of leather covering the mechanism. The path towards the exit was clear, or comparatively was when looking at the blocked traffic ahead. It was so tempting. Montagne looks again at his husband, and now, his expression was inscrutable. His eyes were on the road he wanted to take, the one-lane exit promising escape from the congested tarmac. And perhaps in a moment of weakness, Monty didn’t ask any questions. In his mind, he called it trust. But even that was up for debate.

The car jolted sideways, then eased its way out of the knot of automobiles. Soon air was streaming in reliably through the open passenger window, where Dominic was resting one of his casted arms. The man nodded slightly to force the pair of aviators he had perched on his head to slip down, further masking his face. In one too-smooth motion, he takes the cell phone from the dashboard with his other hand and turns off the GPS, and Montagne presses his lips together just a bit more firmly, forced to follow a plan that he wasn’t informed of. The German drops the phone to the ground of the car unceremoniously, as if it meant nothing at all.

The road curved, then straightened out, leaving them going in a direction perpendicular from before. “This some kind of shortcut?” Montagne probes.

“You know, you’re usually really smart.”

Montagne side eyes his husband.

The wind keeps buffeting in unevenly – despite the sky’s clearness, there was a bit of a threat in the bite of it. Dom nods his head again, blue eyes peeking out over mirrored aviators. “We’re not going. Not in that fucking mess, and we both know it. Think about trying to find the right street. Think about parking. No. We’re not doing that.”

“We went through all this trouble,” Monty says, his stomach sinking. “We did the preparations at the base, we were all set up to go this morning. I thought we had enough time-”

“I’m not angry.” Dominic’s angling of his head still communicated some sort of superiority, but any bite had gone from his voice. “We were late getting started. I know some people camped out beforehand.”

“Overnight surveillance.”

“Unnecessary babysitting. Campers. Dumbasses who thought that sleeping on the concrete was viable. I’ve slept on concrete. I know good reasons for sleeping on concrete. This isn’t one of them.” Dominic waves the hand closest to Montagne and looks out the windshield as the guardrails disappear. A simple, two lane highway stretched out in front of them. They were alone, save for the air blowing through Dom’s window. “Open up the windows, let’s get some air moving.”

Montagne obeys, and the windows whirr down one by one, mechanisms moving as they should. Dom leans forward and fiddles with the radio. It’s tuned into the news, a habit of Monty’s, and there’s only a brief mention of traffic and the cause thereof before he’s switched it to something he likes more. With music piping in, it’s nice. But he does add, “People who slept on the concrete got to go to Pride, you know.”

“Yeah I know.” Dominic makes a show of sticking a foot out the window, almost adjusting one of the side view mirrors.

“You really wanted to go.”

“I know.” His tone makes Monty shut up, and quick. There’s another round of silence, punctuated by the way the wind gusts into the cabin. Outside, birds circle, and Dominic sights a deer that he makes a finger gun at, pretending to pull the trigger on a six point buck. He gives up after that, hand laying limp, aviators stuck halfway down his nose.

Montagne, bereft of direction, keeps driving. He’s a man of persistence, but also of patience. This would play out the way it was supposed to, he knew. He was a wise enough man to know when Dominic needed his space. The man wasn’t a child – he didn’t throw fits, he didn’t get angry without reason. And it would be fair if he was upset.

“You know I was just looking forward to being a face in the crowd,” Dom finally says. “No one would know, you know.”

“No cops at Pride?”

Dominic laughs lightly. “Yeah. No cops at Pride. Just two idiots who got there late wearing too much sunscreen with an awful parking space.” His mouth twitches. “I fucking hate that I broke my arms. I can’t even reach out and hold your hand right now, that’s how pathetic it is. What self respecting person breaks both their arms at the same goddamn time, huh?”

“I hear idiots make a habit of it,” Monty grins despite himself. Dominic shakes his head, then shakes it again, a bit more violently, and the mirrored glasses fall into his lap.

“Guess that means me.”

“Guess it does. But you’re an idiot I love.” Monty offers it like a white flag, some sort of consolation. Bandit sighs.

“I guess it’ll do.”

They continue driving until there’s a gas station with a small convenience store attached, something mom and pop looking enough to warrant attention. Monty needed to fill up the tank anyway, the majority of the load spent on going to a Pride parade they’d never make it to, and it seemed right to stop, climb out, and assess their surroundings.

Soon enough, there’s two glass-bottle cokes in Monty’s hands, and thanks to Bandit’s keychain, they’re easy enough to pop open. Bandit sits on the hood of the car, sipping his coke through a straw, as Monty fills the car up.

“Looks nice from here,” he says.

Monty looks up from his place at the pump, wiping the sweat off his brow. “What, the city?”

“Yeah. Doesn’t exactly look different. But maybe it just looks a bit better with everyone in there. All packed in. Trying to prove something to themselves. To their families. To anyone looking on.”

Monty hooks the nozzle back onto the holding mechanism, looking at the price of gas. Abysmal. But he stays quiet – this seemed more about Dominic than anyone else.

“I guess it would’ve been nice to go but I mean would we really fit there? Would we really belong?”

“We are married,” Monty says, seating himself on the hood of the car beside his husband. “I feel like you’re forgetting that rather important detail.” His hand moves, slowly, touching the simple white-gold band around Bandit’s ring finger. “I think that’s proof enough.”

“Sure,” Bandit concedes.

Monty leans back slightly, taking a draw from his bottle. He thinks things over for a moment, wiping away some of the condensation away from the glass. “But it’s nice to be witnessed. Being seen’s the whole point, isn’t it?”

Bandit shrugs, half scoffing. “I don’t need to be seen.”

“But it’s nice to be.”

“I’m married to you whether or not anyone else knows it, or sees it.”

“But you wear the ring for a reason.”

Bandit pauses, looking down – but Montage notices he’s looking not at his own hand, but at Monty’s. “I do.”

“For me?”

“For us,” the German states, and it’s a solid thing, so steadfast Monty could put money on it. “I like that it’s there. It feels like it’s just part of me now. At first it was so awkward, it got in the way of everything. Now I can’t imagine not wearing it. I took it off for a training exercise a few weeks ago and I realized that all I could think about was its absence. So I just haven’t taken it off since.”

Montagne leans in, pressing a kiss to the blonde’s rough, sweaty cheek. It’s a gentle thing. “I’m still sorry we didn’t make it.”

“There’s always next year,” Bandit says, boots pressing against the front bumper of Monty’s car. He leans into his companion’s broad shoulder. He was what was advertised on the tin: a mountain, dense, solid. He was reliable as he always was, a foil to himself – the one that was late, that was flighty, that changed the plan because he knew what had to be done. “But for now… this is all I need.”

“Even if you wanted more.”

“I want to be married to you. I have what I want.”

Monty smiles, and Dominic rolls his eyes. Sometimes it just took forever to get it through his head that everything was okay. The German looks back towards the city, his gaze distant from his words.

“Fucking sap.”

“You choose me.”

“No way,” Bandit sips a bit more coke through his plastic straw, “You chose me. I’m ratty enough to be chosen, stray cat style, ratty eared and shit. You – you I had to fight for. You have to fight for an actual proper gentlemanly type.”

“And you say I’m a sap.”

Bandit’s eyes hold a mirth that’s hard to eek out sometimes, a kind of happiness that so often was held behind walls and closed doors of his own making. It was so simple – seeing happiness in his eyes, unadulterated, the blue matching the sky above. Blue like freedom, like water, like air. There were a thousand things to compare Dominic to, but none of them were quite right. None of them measured up in the way that truly exemplified what Dominic was – or maybe Monty just didn’t have the right words for him. Nothing romantic enough to make him swoon, not grand enough to compare to military speeches that inspired them. He’s not a man who has all the answers. Or all the nuance. But Monty reaches out, fingers first glancing over that blonde beard he loves so much, then settles them up at his sideburns.

“I love you, you know.”

Dom clinks his coke bottle against Monty’s in some small, gentle toast. “I love you too.”


End file.
